This disclosure relates generally to computing systems with wireless radio devices and more particularly to mobile computing systems with wireless peripheral devices for data processing.
Computing systems generally have a variety of wireless device interfaces with multiple technological standards to provide services to wireless peripheral devices. Wireless devices operate in certain defined frequency spectrum. However, recently the gap between multiple operational frequency spectrums has narrowed and the devices operating in these spectrums often interfere with each other""s communication channels. In some cases, the operational frequencies of different wireless communication standards overlap with each other making it difficult to operate devices in the same frequency spectrum. For example, the Bluetooth and the wireless IEEE 802.11 devices operate in the same 2.4 Giga Hertz frequency range. When a computing system communicates with a wireless device with Bluetooth technology and another wireless device with IEEE 802.11 standard is operating nearby or is trying to establish a communication channel with the computing system, then this may cause performance or system interference with other communication channels in the competing system. In such case, either the quality of transmission and reception of the devices will be degraded or the communication connection will be dropped due to a high error rate.
Similar problems arise when a mobile computing systems operates in an environment in which multiple radio frequency devices are operating such as microwave oven, wireless phones and like. The radio frequency interference increases the transmission and reception error rates and may cause the computing system to drop the communication connection thus affecting the data processing.
The operating systems on computing systems communicate with wireless peripheral devices through each device""s Network Interface Cards (NIC) which conforms to e.g. the Network Driver Interface Specification (NDIS). NDIS provides a standard interface to computing systems irrespective of underlying technology of NIC. The wireless devices connect to computing systems and computing systems communicate with wireless peripheral devices using device specific NIC. Each individual NIC controls its wireless environment for communication. The computing system is not directly involved in the control of wireless device. When wireless peripheral on multiple incompatible technologies attempt to communicate with the computing system, the radio interference from each device increase the error rate of communication. When the error rate exceeds certain acceptable level then either the computing system or the device interface NIC terminates the connection. In an environment where there is a heavy use of wireless devices such as wireless phones, wireless network adapters, microwave ovens, wireless personal communication devices and like, it is difficult to maintain a continuous wireless connection with an acceptable error rate. The computing systems have to choose the most powerful signal with acceptable error rate to communicate with and drop the low power, high error rate signals. In such environment, a device with high communication error rate may never be able to make and maintain a connection with the computing system for a longer period of time.
The present disclosure relates to a method to control the parameters of wireless device interface such as power, gain, frequency, bandwidth and other parameters in a computing system. In one embodiment, the present disclosure provides control over multiple wireless device interfaces and monitors the error rate and the quality of communication of these devices. In case of a conflict or interference, the power, gain and bandwidth of devices is adjusted to create an optimal working environment for multiple wireless devices. It is ensured that each wireless device operate within its optimal range and in case of an unresolved conflict between devices, a priority scheme is utilized to ensure the integrity of critical wireless communication data.
The foregoing is a Summary and thus contains, by necessity, simplifications, generalizations and omissions of detail; consequently, those skilled in the art will appreciate that the summary is illustrative only and is not intended to be in any way limiting. Other aspects, inventive features, and advantages of the present invention, as defined solely by the claims, will become apparent in the non-limiting detailed description set forth below.